|
Natural Skin Care
What Does Natural Skin Care Mean?
The number of consumers who are concerned about the toxins
in our skin care products is growing all the time, this is leading
to an increase in companies who are jumping on the organic, natural
skin care product bandwagon. Due to this increase in awareness
there are many people who don't know what to look out for and
what to avoid. Because of this I have included all relevant information
about organic and natural skin care products below.
However, what does the term "organic" and "natural"
actually mean when on a mainstream product?
How do we really know that the skin care product is "organic"
or "natural"?
How do we know that the skin care product doesn't contain
nasty chemicals and toxins?
Is Natural Skin Care Really any better for us?
Our skin is the largest organ in our bodies, it is a two-way
membrane. Toxins can be absorbed through the skin via hair follicle
and sebaceous glands, but not through the sweat glands, into
our circulation system. Or they can be eliminated through the
skin via perspiration. One square inch of skin contains approximately
65 hairs, 650 sweat glands and 100 sebaceous glands. This means
that every square inch of your skin is like a thousand open mouths,
absorbing what is put on it.
Which Skin Care products are Truly Natural and Proactive?
If skin care manufactures claimed that their products penetrated
the skin they would actually be classed as 'drugs'. This would
mean that they would be governed by stricter regulations. However,
at present we are very aware that the skin absorbs the products
put on it, and because of this we can nourish our skin from the
outside, which is good. But, this also means if we put harmful
chemicals on our skin it too gets absorbed into our bloodstream,
chemicals that would not be allowed to take orally. These chemicals
are still absorbed via our skin.
On our Skin Care Items, what do the Labels "Natural"
and "Organic" mean?
The terms "natural" and "organic" in skin
care terms means one thing to the consumers and something totally
different to the marketers of the product. If we take the word
'natural' for example, and look it up in the dictionary this
is what it says, "existing in, or caused by nature; not
artificial; uncultivated; wild existing in natural state; not
disguised or altered".
It is very clear to me and you what natural means, but to
the people who have to market the skin care products we use,
it means something different. They have put a whole new slant
on the word 'natural', and are starting to change their interpretation
to suit themselves.
There are many labels that have the list of chemicals on them,
some of them are followed by the phrase "derived from "
(some natural substance). This is so very misleading! Consumers
who are looking for genuinely 'natural' products are being taken
for a ride.
Synthetic Chemicals are Anything but Natural
Some chemicals such as, Sodium Hydroxysultaine or Cocamide
DEA are followed by the words "derived from coconut oil"
this leads the consumer to believe that these chemicals must
somehow be natural. This is true in some cases, if a natural
oil or extract is actually used, however it is actually irrelevant
because the product you end up with after the chemical solvent
extraction and processing is usually anything but natural or
pure. It is a chemical concoction with a very long strange name
to describe the process the original "natural" substance
went through.
|
